A few weeks ago on Joe Bob’s Last Drive-In Show, there was a movie about witches in Canada (probably?) that was mostly a small ensemble cast that is also a real life family: daughter, mother, father, who make movies under the label “An Adams Family Film”, which, fair enough, it’s an attention grabber plus also that is in fact his last name.

It turns out I already had one of their movies in my queue, and The Deeper You Dig had an even more intimate cast, which is to say yes the same people, but fewer intrusions by other people. The mom and teen daughter are a family, mom tarot reads to the gullible while daughter Echo[1] has a disaffected goth vibe towards her life around other people while clearly being fun-loving with a tight bond to her mother when not around other people. Which is all fine until, while sledding at night (in Canada again?), Echo is hit and killed by the guy down the road restoring a house to flip (oh, so probably not Canada I guess), who was maybe drunk but who almost certainly would have hit her anyway, if I read the scene right.

Everything past that is a pressure-cooker drama by way of The Tell-Tale Heart in which the guy is haunted by his actions, and the mom is growing ever more suspicious about who is to blame. Both this and the Joe Bob witches movie are charmingly amateurish, but despite the lower than I’m accustomed to quality of the film and the effects, there’s real talent driving the waltz of death between these three characters as they edge ever closer to a possibly brutal and definitely chilling confrontation.

This is what modern indie horror looks like, and it makes me believe that anyone with the ambition to take a chance could still make it happen for themselves.

[1] Her name is, shall we say, on the nose

You know how found footage is a movie (mostly horror, but perhaps not entirely) subgenre? And you know how over the past two to three years, what with Covid, lots of movies are now filmed partially or entirely via Zoom calls or other internet streaming video connections? The Cleansing Hour isn’t exactly that kind of movie, but others I’ve watched over the past, well, two to three years have been, and this one got me wondering about what the new subgenre is called, if anything.

In addition to being the title of the movie, you see, The Cleansing Hour is also the name of a weekly exorcism livestream in which Father Max faces off against a new demon possessing a new person[1] every week. I guess they must bring each victim to the studio? I’m not sure that makes sense, but then again, it doesn’t have to, because it’s a staged show, with no real demons or for that matter priests involved.

I bet you see where this is going, but you know what? I say this is an excellent, juicy premise for a movie. What happens when a demon actually shows up, and now they all have to figure out what to do about it? And oh by the way, the livestream is already up and running, so no calling in the actual professionals when everyone can see you already. Good luck!

And then, this is the best part: the movie entirely delivers on the promise of that premise, up, down, and sideways. I have no complaints, and would unreservedly recommend this to anyone who likes exorcism flicks or has a grudge against things that are phony.

….although that last bit raises a question that went through my mind as I was watching. How weird must it be to make a definitionally fake exorcism movie about a demon who is pissed off about all the fake exorcism movies you’re making? I bet the pranks on that set were legendary.

[1] Hundreds of possessions cured! Thousands of demons defeated!, say the opening credits. I cannot make that math work, though. Like… how?

Apparently, both films named Scare Me released in 2020, which makes it a lot harder to distinguish which one I’m talking about here than I’m used to. Even worse (although I suppose the title lends itself to this outcome), they’re both about the same thing, which is people telling each other scary stories. Worst of all, I have no idea whether I can distinguish this one from the other one by saying it’s the one that’s sort of funny in addition to being scary. …since I didn’t see the other one, you understand.

IMDb says this is horror and comedy, but I disagree. Even though the stories are mostly not scary, it’s also mostly not played for laughs. There’s a ton of snark, and it is well-mixed with a lot of genre self-awareness, but it’s not a comedy. The characters, as they tell their stories to and with each other, cause the lines between imagination and reality to grow ever more blurry, and this is the source of most of the horror and most of the humor… but not, you know, at the same time.

Irony meter: while this is not the first movie I’ve heard mention the Bechdel test, I’m pretty sure it’s the first one which, having mentioned it, proceeds not to pass it.

Did you ever wonder how it would look if someone took a run at Get Out, but for gay people instead of black people? If you have… Spiral doesn’t quite get there, but that’s not to say there isn’t a movie worth watching here so much as that it’s a really high target.

Two men and their 16 year old daughter move to either a picturesque bedroom community or else maybe just the suburbs? It kind of varies. Also, it’s 1995. Once there, they are exposed to glarey-eyed old men, homophobia, nosy neighbors, and for the younger and more flamboyant half of the couple, a creeping dread and flashbacks to a gay-bashing experience that his high school boyfriend took the brunt of half a lifetime earlier.

So why doesn’t it quite reach the comparison it was (apparently) striving for? For one thing, Spiral does not have the targeted feel that it should, on a moment by moment basis. I could change very little of the movie and it would fit a heterosexual couple just as easily. For another, the entire premise is cast into doubt by an unreliable main character who may simply be off his meds. And on the one hand, when done effectively (and this was), the game where they keep you guessing if this is an internal or external horror movie is something I’m quite fond of, even if the writers choose “internal” all too seldomly[1]. But on the other, when your base premise is this good, you commit to it instead of waffling between it and a diferent good premise, because half your audience won’t be satisfied regardless of what you pick.

Still and all, pretty good movie.

[1] Man I want to name drop an excellent example of when they did, but it kind of ruins the entire movie if you know in advance.

The thing about Rabbit is, I feel like I have seen this exact movie before when they called it The Wicker Man or Midsommar[1], but this one has twins!, is the distinguishing feature. See, there’s this twin sister who is having visions of the other sister, with whom she has a complicated relationship but also the sister went missing a while ago, long enough that the rest of the family has held a funeral, which she did not attend due to not believing she’s dead but the family thinks due to the complicated relationship. But now the visions have come to a head, so she’s returned to Australia[2] to find the missing twin once and for all.

Which, to bring it back around, mostly involves wandering around a campgrounds area except people seem to live there instead of be camping, and also everyone keeps looking at her and/or each other meaningfully, which is my point about the comparison to the other movies.

Later, there’s a secret ending, which I will not spoil.

[1] The latter of which I have not technically seen at all, but it just feels like it’s the same thing, you know?
[2] I don’t know anything about Australian law, but I should mention that the sister has only been missing for like a year or something? It seems too soon to me for her to be declared dead, but what do I know?

Color out of Space appears to be a modern but otherwise fairly direct adaptation of a Lovecraft story. I haven’t read the story, and I do not 100% know it exists, but it has that feel to it. In this story (or at least in the movie) there’s this guy who is a narrator a little and witness-bearer a lot to the strange events surrounding a remote farmstead outside Arkham that is host to a meteor strike.

You know what, this makes me want to play Mansions of Madness.

But so anyway, there’s a weird purply-pinky-maybe bluey(?) glow around the meteor, and then later around a lot of other things, to let you know that the creepy Lovecraftian shit is going down, and also there’s Nicolas Cage as the cityfolk patriarch of the newly arrived farmer / alpaca ranchers who live at this farmstead, and let’s be honest, his only job is to demonstrate creeping Lovecraftian insanity, but let’s also be honest, he’s Nic Cage, so you know he’s going to deliver.

There are definitely things that I did not understand at all, or at least have no confidence in my understanding, but you know, that’s also very much on brand. I think this may have replaced Event Horizon as my favorite Lovecraft-inspired movie. EH is the better movie, of course, but I think this provides the better feeling of reading a Lovecraft book.